Today, Dillon and I hiked with my dear friend, Lizz, and we did a 4 mile portion of the Illinois River Bluff Trail. The Illinois River Bluff Trail is a series of trails that connect Camp Wokanda all the way to Detweiller Park, which is 6.9 miles total. We hiked out and back 4.2 miles, so we really only did about 2 miles on the Illinois River Bluff Trail.
We started out at Camp Wokanda and parked in the southeast parking lot. We headed south out of the parking lot, which takes you to a sign showing you are starting the Illinois River Bluff Trail. You pass through a few campsites and along the way see the maple syrup lines. You also pass some information on how they tap the maple trees to get the syrup out. It was a fun little educational opportunity.
From there, you start hiking up and up and up. This area of the trail is very hilly and rolling. The trails are well marked with the trail logo. You cross over a creek in a couple of spots, but with it being November, it was pretty dried up. I imagine its pretty flowing in the spring.
The views were beautiful through this area. Even though it was hilly, it was amazing to look down in the valleys. Most of the trees were bare at this point, but I bet it was gorgeous a few weeks ago.
During some of the steeper climbs, there were benches along the way to let you rest if needed. There were some stairs to climb, but it was mostly just dirt trail. We finally got to the top and there was quite a ways that was flat, so it was a nice break for our glutes.
We came to a nice bridge that crossed a steep ravine. Again, like I keep talking about, it has some great views. People forget how hilly Illinois can be, especially around the Illinois River area.
Dillon rode in the carrier most of the way because of how hilly it was, but he walked about 1/2 mile during a flat spot. After we crossed this bridge, we came into the Robinson Park area. This is a series of loops, so you can decide which way you want it go. They will all take you back to the same spot. In this spot, we saw a family of deer. The buck bolted in front of us across the trail, but the rest just stood there and stared (and we stared back).
We headed back downhill for a bit and followed along a creek. We got to a spot where we could have crossed the creek to do another loop, which would have probably added about 1/2 mile, but we decided to keep going along the path we were on and head back. This was probably around the 2 mile point.
We headed back uphill, back over the large bridge, and back towards Camp Wokanda. There was this fun ramp Dillon loved running on.
We only saw a couple other people out on the trail. I had also brought some bags to pick up garbage, but didn’t see anything along the trail. Its been really taken care of. Going back through the really steep areas of Camp Wokanda was tough since we were pretty tired, but it was so beautiful.
Overall, we did 4.2 miles according to AllTrails. This was a great trail, I would absolutely do this portion again, even with the elevations. I can’t wait to check out the other portions and to do the entire trail at once.
Thanks for hiking with Dillon, Lizz and me!